Pandan Layer Cake with Gula Melaka Milk Soak

 
Pandan leaves are widely used in Southeast Asia to flavour sweets and desserts. Most of our local kuih are cooked infused in pandan leaves. Pandan is also a popular flavour for cakes here. In Malaysia, apart from the common vanilla and chocolate flavoured cakes, you'll find pandan cakes as well in bakeries, markets and even commercial packed ones in the supermarkets. It's easy to plant pandan, just poke the entire plant with the root into the soil and it'll grow. They don't need much care. I have a pandan plant in my garden and it's very handy to have fresh pandan leaves off your garden when you need it for asian cuisine. I am thinking of planting more pandan since I use quite a lot of it in one go.


Pandan Layer Cake

Preparation time: 2 hours
Cooking time: 50 minutes
Utensils: 7" cake pan and 7" spring form pan

Makes a 7" cake
Level of difficulty: *


Pandan Chiffon Cake
3 egg yolks
1 egg
40g caster sugar
50ml pandan milk (1/2 tsp pandan essence + 50ml coconut milk)
1/4 tsp salt
50ml sunflower oil
60g SR flour
1/4 tsp baking powder
3 egg whites
40g sugar
1/4 tsp cream of tartar

1. Preheat oven to 160C and line cake pan with parchment paper and grease the sides and top of paper with a pastry brush.
2. In a mixing bowl, beat the egg yolks, egg and 40g sugar until pale and fluffy. Add salt into the pandan milk and stir.
3. Stream in oil, followed by pandan milk into egg yolk mixture and continue beating until well-combined.
4. Sift flour and baking powder and set aside. Fold in dry ingredients into the egg yolk mixture with a spatula until all the dry ingredients are well-incorporated.
5. In a separate mixing bowl, whisk egg whites, 40g sugar and cream of tartar until stiff peak forms.
6. Fold in the egg whites into the egg yolk mixture until batter is well combined, smooth and glossy.
7. Pour batter into prepared cake pan and bake for 35 minutes. 
 
Pandan Custard
500ml coconut milk
100ml water
8 pandan leaves, cut into strips crosswise
1/4 tsp salt
120g caster sugar
3/4 tbsp agar-agar powder
6 tbsp green hoen kwe flour / mung beans flour
green colouring

1. In a medium bowl, add coconut milk and water and stir until combined.
2. Place cut pandan leaves in a blender, add some coconut milk mixture to blender and blend to get some pandan milk. Strain mixture back into the medium bowl and stir until combined.
3. In a medium sauce pan, add coconut milk mixture, salt, sugar, agar-agar powder and hoen kwe flour. Stir with a spoon until dry ingredients are dissolved. 
4. Cook custard over medium heat, constantly stirring until custard is thick and fragrant. Add more green colouring as desired. About 1/2 tsp to 1 tsp and you'll get the right apple green colour.
5. Remove from stove and allow to cool. If the mixture is lumpy, whisk with a hand mixer until smooth.

Gula Melaka Milk Soak
90ml milk
25g gula melaka

In a small bowl, add milk and gula melaka and stir until gula melaka is completely dissolved.

Cake Assembly Instructions
Dessicated coconut

1. Cut cake into three layers. Cut the side of the cake to expose the inside colour of the cake. Line the side of a 7" spring form pan with parchment paper. The paper should be about 3 inches above the side of the spring form pan.  
2. Place a layer into the pan and give it a healthy bath of gula melaka milk. Spread the pandan custard over the layer of cake with the back of a spoon.
3. Repeat until all three layers are assembled. Sprinkle top of cake with dessicated coconut. Chill cake overnight before serving.
4. The cake should be kept chilled and is best consumed within a week.

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My favourite pandan cake is one that has just the right amount of pandan flavour. In order to get strong smelling pandan, pandan flavouring comes in handy. People are always saying don't use too much artificial flavour but without the help from the essence, don't expect your cake to have the sweet overwhelming smell of pandan. This cake uses a combination of artificial flavour and natural pandan leaves.


The custard layer of the cake taste more like kuih and jelly. It's soft and moist. I would recommend making the kuih like custard since it goes well with the soft chiffon cake. To make this cake special,  I made a gula melaka milk soak. This is probably an influence from Momofuku recipes and it turned out great!

The gula melaka milk soak tastes really good with the pandan cake. It has a hint of gula melaka flavour and will keep the cake moist for days. If you want a stronger gula melaka taste, add 1/2 tsp of molasses to enhance the flavour. This will be my go to recipe for pandan layer cake.

Happy baking! xx